I was about to embark on a three-and-a-half-hour trek home to Connecticut from Maine after a beach weekend. I had two youngsters in the back seat and, my wife and I would quickly discover, no food. But I had gadgets, and I had apps. And I was about to find out if they could mollify an 8-year-old boy, Luca, and an 11-year-old girl, Juliana, more effectively than snacks. A little preview: if you have a BlackBerry, pack lots of snacks. An Android requires fewer, and an iPhone (or, better yet, an iPad) may completely replace road food, if you choose your apps well. My general philosophy is that staring silently out the window is one of the more rewarding uses of brain power. But when that gets old, the children’s bickering gets loud and you notice that two nearby drivers are engaged in highway texting (for real), philosophy does not help. Read More